Category : Information about the Internet from the early 1990's
Archive   : QVTWS398.ZIP
Filename : RELNOTES.WRI

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[šššš›œWinQVT/Net

Version 3.x
Release Notes




Version 3.98

177. News: the right-hand button array will now redraw correctly with the News window is resized.

178. Mail: the 'list_height=' statement has been added to the [pop] section of QVTNET.INI. As with the News module, this statement allows you to set the number of visible entries in the listbox. Values can range from 2 through 10.

(Item 179 has been deleted).

180. News: the functionality of the 'Newsgroups - Reset' function has been changed. This command will now make available all articles in the newsgroup, including those which have been read in the current or prior sessions. The effect is as though the newsgroup has been newly subscribed. A new menuitem, 'Articles - Undelete All', has been added to perform the function previously handled by 'Newsgroups - Reset'.

181. Terminal: when a full screen erase is performed, the existing contents of the screen, prior to the erase, will be saved in the scrollback buffer. Partial screen erases are not saved.

182. FTP: usernames and passwords can now be up to 127 characters long. The previous limit was 32.

183. FTP: the internal buffer which is used in the various 'm' commands (e.g., mget, mdelete) has been doubled in size. It is now less likely to overflow on long lists of files.

184. Mail: the mail module has been enhanced significantly, in the form of support for 'local mailboxes'. The entire functioning of the mail application now revolves around the concept of the 'mailbox', which is defined simply as a mail repository, located either on the PC itself, or on a remote POP3 server.

The effect of this can be seen immediately in the Mail Login dialog: you are no longer asked to enter a host name and user name; instead, you must select (or create) a mailbox to connect to. Initially, you should use the 'New' button to create a mailbox entry that defines the POP3 host that you have been using in the past (make sure that you select the 'Remote' radiobutton). You can then login in the usual manner.

A remote mailbox entry consists of these items:

* Mailbox name. This can be anything meaningful text string. Embedded blanks are allowed.
* Location. This will be the host name (as found in the old 'host=' config directive).
* Username. The login username (as found in the old 'username=' config directive).

A local mailbox entry consists of these items:

* Mailbox name.
* Location. This will be the fully-qualified pathname of the mailbox. For consistency, we recommend that you use subdirectories of your primary mail 'save directory' (see below).

The new mailbox-oriented architecture is not fully backward-compatible. The old config directives 'host=' and 'username=' are obsolete. Instead, you must interactively create a mailbox record for your POP3 mailbox (from the Mail Login dialog). The POP3 host and username will be stored as 'Location' and 'Username' in the new mailbox format. A new config directive, 'mailbox=', has been added as a way to select a 'default mailbox' for logins. The argument to this directive should be the mailbox name (either local or remote).


The local-mailbox functionality is activated from the Mail Setup dialog, using the new 'Retain Local' checkbox. If this option is selected, the following new action will be performed:

* Upon completion of a POP3 session (i.e., reading from a 'remote mailbox'), messages which have been read but not deleted will be saved in a local mailbox called 'mbox', and deleted from the remote mailbox. This is implemented as a subdirectory of the primary mail 'save directory'. For example, if your save directory is 'c:\mail', then the 'mbox' mailbox will be a subdirectory 'c:\mail\\mbox, where is the username under which the remote mailbox is accessed. This directory will be created by WinQVT/Net if it doesn't already exist.

You can read mail from a local mailbox in exactly the same way that you would read mail that is located in a remote POP3 mailbox. If you are using SMTP as your default 'send mail' protocol, you can also reply to locally-stored messages.

* A new control button, 'Move', has been added for use with local mailboxes. This button allows you to move the current message from the current open mailbox to another (local) mailbox. An 'edit' button is provided which allows you to modify the message before moving it.

(Item 185 has been deleted)

186. News: some problems with memory corruption when reading large newsgroups have been eliminated.

187. Terminal: you can now specify an IP address/Port number combination when starting a terminal session, either interactively, or remotely via the 'TNSTART' facility. The accepted notations are 'nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn:ppppp' or 'nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn,ppppp', where 'ppppp' is the IP port number (in decimal).

188. Mail: a radio-button group has been added to the 'Send Mail' dialog which allows the direct selection of 'text' or 'binary' mode when sending a file through the mail. If 'binary' is selected, the file will be sent in uuencoded format; otherwise, the file will be sent verbatim.

189. News/Mail: the 'setup' dialogs for these modules have been revised and updated.

190. Mail: a new menuitem - 'Add Alias' - has been added to the 'File' menu. This new function allows you to add the sender of the current message to the QVTALIAS.RC file. The sender's email address will be filled in for you, but you will be required to supply an alias.

Note that:

a. Aliases can contain blanks, to enhance readability;
b. Do not append a colon to the end of the alias - WinQVT/Net will supply the terminating colon for you.

(Note 191 is obsolete and has been deleted).

192. News: it is now possible to arrange for posted articles and followups to be saved rather than deleted after posting. To enable this feature, include the statement 'save_postings=yes' in the [nntp] section of QVTNET.INI. Articles will be placed in the directory named by the DOS environment variable 'TEMP'.

193. Mail: you can now arrange for outgoing mail messages (and replies) to be echoed automatically to your own mailbox. To enable this feature, include the statement 'echo_outgoing=yes' in the [pop] section of QVTNET.INI. Messages will be sent to the address specified by the 'smtp_return=' config directive. You can control this at the level of the individual message by checking or clearing the 'Echo' checkbox which appears on the 'send' dialogs.

194. FTP: a new item - 'Font' - has been added to the 'Configure' menu. You can use this menuitem to select any installed fixed-pitch font. Your selection will be saved automatically to the [ftp] section of QVTNET.INI.

195. Console: when launched minimized, the Console will now stay minimized.

196. News: the news reader now works by downloading batches of news articles to your PC and viewing them locally, rather than reading directly from the NNTP server. In order to support this change, the 'File - Open' menuitem has been enhanced with a small dialog. This dialog provides four modes of opening a session:

* To begin reading the news articles which are presently in storage on the PC, select 'Read available articles'.
* To download new articles from the server, select 'Download new articles'.
* To download articles from the server, then begin reading, select the 'Download and read new articles' radiobutton.
* To schedule a download for a future time, first select 'Start download at', then enter a time, in HH:MM format, into the supplied input field.

Downloads will be based on the contents of NEWS.RC. Only articles which are defined as 'unread' in NEWS.RC, and which are not already present on the PC's disk, will be downloaded. Articles will be stored in a directory tree which has your News 'Save' directory as its root. A series of subdirectories will be created to accommodate each newsgroup in a logical manner. Each download session leaves a log of its activities in the file NEWSDL.LOG, which is placed in the main News 'save' directory.

(Batch downloads won't 'take over' your machine, so you can start a download and do other things while the download executes in the background.)

The process of reading news articles is mostly identical to that used in previous versions of WinQVT/Net. The main difference is that, with the entire batch of articles available at once, the articles will be sorted by subject and date.

A new menuitem has been added to the 'Articles' menu. This is the 'Show Threads' menuitem, which allows you to browse through a newsgroup at the thread level, rather than the article level. Threads can be quickly selected for reading, or efficiently deleted. The 'Show Threads' function is also available as a front-panel pushbutton.

Deletion of articles is handled by the new 'expire=' configuration directive (accessible from the News Setup dialog). This allows you to set the time period, in days, that news articles will be retained on the PC before being deleted automatically. The default value is 5 days.

The new design of the News Reader has an impact on the 'Subscribe' process. To begin with, you may not subscribe to newsgroups while you are reading news. Secondly, the subscribe operation now works from a local copy of the newsgroup list; if no such list exists, a copy will be downloaded from the server, after which the subscribe process will continue. Having once downloaded a newsgroup list, you will have the option of updating it in subsequent uses of the 'Subscribe' function.

197. Mail: a new 'Forward' command has been added, in the form of a new button.

198. Mail: the alias functionality is now recursive; i.e., aliases can themselves contain references to aliases. Caution is advised against creating self-referencing aliases.

199. FTP Server: the 'mkdir' and 'rmdir' commands are now supported.

200. FTP Server: will now produce an expanded file listing in response to the LIST command.

201. Terminal: a 'Run Maximized' option has been added to the 'Start Terminal Session' dialog.

202. Terminal: you can now save configuration information in QVTNET.RC from within a Terminal session. All configurable items will be written with their present values, with the partial except of 'winpos', which will be written only if a user-specified 'winpos' is already present in the configuration. The option also exists to save the configuration under a new name, which is a good way to build a QVTNET.RC file from scratch.

203. Mail: a minimal SMTP daemon has been added, which allows you to receive mail directly on the PC, rather than going through an external POP3 server. In order for mail to be received via SMTP, a 'newmail' directory for the target user (or mailbox) must exist in the mail 'save' directory. For example, if the mail save directory is 'c:\mail', and the target user is 'smith', then the directory 'c:\mail\smith\newmail' must exist.

You can also receive mail into any of the local mailboxes that are defined in QVTMBOX.RC. In order for this to work, however, your mailbox names must meet the standards documented in RFC822 as to format and content. They cannot, for example, contain any blanks.

If you choose to receive your mail using the SMTP daemon, you should keep your PC up and running as much as possible (or reasonable). If unable to deliver a message, the sender SMTP will retry periodically, over a period of a few days, but eventually the message will bounce.

Auto-response feature: If the file 'VACATION.MSG' exists in the mail 'save' directory, then the contents of that file will automatically be sent as a return message when a message is received by the SMTP daemon.

204. You may now use QVTNET.INI to specify the locations of the 'hosts' file and help file, instead of environment variables. Here is an example:

[net]
...
hostdir=c:\winsock\etc
...
[console]
...
helpdir=c:\qvtnet
...

205. Mail: the 'Reply' function now uses the same dialog box as the 'Send Mail' function. This enables the use of aliases, Cc:, and file attachments in replies as well as new messages.

206. Mail: in the 'Send Mail' dialog, the alias list is now available for use with the 'Cc:' field.

207. Mail: in the 'Send Mail' dialog, the name of the last file sent, together with the file mode, is stored between sessions.

208. Terminal: a bug which sometimes caused 'rlogin' connections to fail - especially in the 32-bit version - has been fixed.

209. Terminal: in the 32-bit version, pressing sometimes caused the application to 'hang'. This has been fixed.

210. Mail: the 'Send Mail' dialog will remain on-screen after the 'Send' button is clicked, until either the message is sent, or the operation is cancelled. This will enable the re-transmission of a message if an SMTP error occurs.

211. News: the 'Subscribe' process has been updated. There is now a single dialog box, containing a combo-box on top and a list box below. The combo-box is used to select, or type in, selection strings (i.e., fragments of newsgroup names). The listbox will display the results when the selection string is applied to the list of available newsgroups. The 'Browse' button is the mechanism by which the selection process is activated. Note, however, that when a prefix is selected from the combo-box, rather than keyed in, the 'Browse' process is automatic.

The 'Download' button is used to download a new master list of newsgroups from the server. Since this may be a lengthy operation (especially over dialup connections), you may want to be sparing in your use of this function.

212. Mail: a new menu option - 'User Messages' - has been added to the 'File' menu. This function, which is available only when reading mail, allows you to browse through all of the locally-stored mail messages which have been received from the currently-selected user. For example, if you are currently reading a new message from '[email protected]', selecting 'User Messages' will display the list of all stored messages from '[email protected]'.

(Note that this function is of interest only when messages are routinely saved in one or more local mailboxes.)

213. Mail: a new menu option - 'Download New Mail' - has been added to the 'File' menu. This new option allows you to download all new mail from a POP3 mailbox to your local 'New Mail' mailbox (both specific to a single user). Note that this menuitem is enabled only if you have specified 'Retain - Local' in the Mail 'Setup' dialog.

214. Servers: a new config directive has been added to the '[servers]' section of QVTNET.INI. This directive - 'acl_default=' - allows you to specify the access rule for directories which are not listed in QVTNET.ACL. In prior releases, there were no restrictions placed on access to unlisted directories. Now, however, by specifying 'acl_default=deny', you can more strictly control access to directories on the server. Only directories listed in QVTNET.ACL will be accessible, and then only by the users whose names appear in the ACL. The default is still 'acl_default=allow', for backward compatibility.

Another note on QVTNET.ACL entries: normally, an ACL entry applies only to a single directory, not to entire directory trees.. This logic can be modified by appending an asterisk to the end of the directory spec. For example, to grant user 'smith' access to an entire hard disk, you would create the following ACL entry:

c:\* smith

215. Terminal: if the same file is used to receive successive screen images, each image will be appended to the end of the file, rather than overwriting the previous image.

216. TNSTART: this release includes a new version of TNSTART.EXE, as well as a 32-bit version, called TNS32.EXE. You must use the new version with WinQVT/Net 3.98; the older version will not work.

217. Terminal: a new config directive has been added to the [terminal] section of QVTNET.INI. This directive is as follows:

keypad=

This allows you to set the startup mode of the numeric and cursor keypads to 'APPLICATION', by using the setting 'keypad=application'. The default is 'numeric'.

218 Mail: when a binary file is received, you will be given the option to 'execute' the file right away. For example, if an MS Word .DOC file is received, you will be able to run MS Word and load the received document. This feature is available only for received files with an .EXE filename extension, or to files whose extensions are listed in the [extensions] section of WIN.INI.

219. News: a new menuitem - 'Article Search' - has been added. This function, which is available only while reading articles, allows you to search for other articles from the same author. The 'Search All' checkbox controls whether the search will be conducted only in the current newsgroup, or in all newsgroups. Once a list of articles has been retrieved, you can click on them to view them in the text window provided.

220. News: a bug has been fixed that made it impossible to subscribe to more than 30 newsgroups.

221. Terminal: a new command - 'sync' - has been added to the script language. This command simply accepts and processes incoming data until there has been a 'silence' of seconds, as specified on the 'sync' command line. For example, the script command 'sync 5' would accept and process data until there has been no data received for 5 seconds.

222. FTP: when downloading a file which already exists, a new filename will be generated to avoid overwriting the existing file.

223. Console: if, at program startup, WinQVT/Net detects that there is no default printer specified in QVTNET.INI, a prompt will come up that will give you the option of naming a default printer at that time. This is to avoid problems that may occur later, if you request some sort of print operation, and there is no default printer.

224. FTP: file transfer rates have been improved.

225. The following environment variables can be used to activate command/response traces in the console window:

For FTP: FTP_DEBUG
For POP3: POP_DEBUG
For SMTP: SMTP_DEBUG
For Telnet: TN_DEBUG
For News: NNTP_DEBUG

The presence of these environment variables will cause the details of the client/server dialogs to be exposed for debugging purposes.

226. FTP and lpr will now accept files to be transmitted or printed, respectively, via the Windows 'drag and drop' mechanism. In the case of FTP, make sure that you have the
appropriate transfer mode set first (text/binary).

227. lpr: you can now submit a list of (up to 8) files to be printed, instead of only one file. The filenames should be separated by a blank space.

228. The 'tnstart' facility has been enhanced with respect to FTP. You can now create a TNSTART command line of the form:

tnstart ftp

This will initiate the FTP module, and immediately begin execute of the script file specified by the 'takefilename' argument.

229. News: a new feature has been added which will automatically 'kill' threads if they are repeatedly deleted without being read. To enable this feature, set 'autokill=on' in the [nntp] section of QVTNET.INI.

230. Terminal: you can now create fixed-size Terminal windows without scrollbars. This is done by selecting 'Scrollbar: Off' in the 'Setup - Terminal' dialog.

231. News: you can preset a scheduled news download time in QVTNET.INI, using the new 'download_time=' directive:

download_time=06:00

Note: this does not automate the download process; it simply reduces the work involved in launching a regularly-scheduled download.

232. The 3.98.4 32-bit release has been tuned for, and tested with, Windows NT 3.5

233. News: it is now possible, using the 'Show Threads' window, to view only new threads which have appeared as of the latest download. This feature can be accessed in two ways: first, from the main News window, press and hold the RIGHT mouse button, then click on 'Show Threads'; second, from within the 'Show Threads' window, click on the 'New' button.

234. News: articles and followups are now prepared using a built-in text-edit control, rather than by invoking an external editor.

235. Some effort has been made to ensure that WinQVT/Net is usable even in situations where the local IP address is not known right away (i.e., at program startup). This problem is most likely to occur in situations where the local IP address is dynamically assigned; e.g. SLIP or BOOTP.

Modules that will have problems if the IP address is unknown or incorrect are: 'rlogin' client; SMTP client; lpr client; all server applications. The best workaround for this type of problem is to initiate at least one telnet or FTP client connection prior to starting one of the applications on this list.

CAC 10/26/94

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Version 3.1


1. Two new config directives have been added to the [terminal] section of QVTNET.INI. They are:

port=
scroll=

When used in QVTNET.INI, these directives will assign the default for all terminal sessions. Both are also available for use in QVTNET.RC, so that individual configurations can be set up differently if necessary.


2. A new config directive has been added to the [pop] section of QVTNET.INI.

protocol=

This directive is used to determine which protocol will be used to send mail. Under POP3, WinQVT/Net supports only the 'XTND XMIT' command for sending mail. However, this command is not available in all POP3 servers, since the POP3 protocol does not specify a standard. In these cases, WinQVT/Net will fall back to SMTP. Where it is known that the installed POP3 server does not support XTND XMIT, the 'protocol=' directive allows SMTP to be selected as the default.

Note: if you decide to use SMTP to send mail, you should also use the 'smtp_return' directive, to specify an appropriate return address. Remember, you must not include your PC's node name as part of the return address, since WinQVT/Net cannot receive mail via SMTP.


3. Bug fix: the FTP client will now retain the 'binary' transfer mode setting from QVTNET.INI.


4. The News Reader's management of the NEWS.RC file has been improved. Unavailable articles are no longer included in the list of 'unread' articles when NEWS.RC is updated.


5. Display performance in the 'Terminal' application has been improved, especially full-screen scrolling (when 'scroll=async' is selected). Also, scrolling in ftp has been speeded up.


6. The 'Reread QVTHOST.RC' function will now cause new gateways to be recognized immediately. (This note is obsolete as of Version 3.20).


7. The security facilities provided by QVTNET.ACL have now been applied to the rcp server as well as the ftp server.


8. The 'winpos=' (or 'win_pos=') directive has been restored to QVTNET.RC, for use in setting the initial window position for a configuration.


9. The 'backspace=' config directive is now used identically in both QVTNET.INI and QVTNET.RC, to specify the ASCII value which will be transmitted by the key. The 3.0 release erroneously had it one way in QVTNET.INI ('backspace') and another in QVTNET.RC ('backsp').


10. lpr: the ability to send a series of print jobs in quick succession has been improved.


11. The stability of the FTP client has been improved. It should no longer hang when attempting to transfer files (or do an 'ls' command).


12. The Mail login dialog now has a checkbox labelled 'Display Messages'. When checked (the default), the contents of the mailbox will be displayed in the listbox at the conclusion of the login process (this was the standard behavior from previous versions). When unchecked, the mailbox contents will not be listed (unless there is new mail). The purpose of this option is to expedite the login process in cases where all you want to do is send mail, without waiting for the contents of the mailbox to be listed.


13. Mail: the 'save' dialog now includes a 'Save to Clipboard' checkbox.


14. The Mail module now supports a (mostly) Unix-compatible 'alias' capability. To use this feature, you should create a text file named QVTALIAS.RC in the WinQVT/Net home directory. This file should contain one or more alias entries, one per line, each of the form:

: , , ...

Note the use of the colon to terminate the alias name, a space to separate the alias from the username list, and the use of commas to separate names within the username list; all are mandatory. Lines beginning with a '#' will be treated as comments (i.e., they will be ignored). The maximum line length is 127 characters. Neither the use of in-line comments nor continuation lines are supported in this version.

The alias facility is made available within the 'Send Mail' dialog, via a drop-down listbox. You can either select the alias from the list, or type it into the input field, which will cause the alias to be selected indirectly.

When you click on the 'Send' button, and an alias has been selected, the list of users associated with the selected alias will be taken as the destination of the mail message (the alias itself will not be interpreted as being part of the list). If there is no alias selected, then the contents of the 'Send to:' input field will used as the addressee.


15. FTP binary file transfers: some users reported difficulty transferring binary files with ftp 3.0. There should be no such problem with ver 3.1. Our testing in this area consisted of transferring a set of .ZIP files to a Unix host and back again, then checking the integrity of the resulting file (all were OK and unZIPed successfully). We also tested the ability to download .Z files from the host and uncompress them on the PC; these tests too were successful.

(See note 39 for more information)


16. Telnet connections to ports other than 23 (telnet) and 513 (rlogin): some 3.0 users reported problems with Telnet sessions to non-standard ports. We have tested this capability in version 3.1 and found it to work. Note that it will probably be necessary to enable local echo for this type of session; also, it may be necessary to reprogram the key so that it transmits both a carriage return and linefeed (use the string "\015\012").



17. FTP: the 'rename' command has been fixed.


18. rlogin: window-size change notifications will now be sent to the host as they occur locally.


19. Telnet: some VMS users have reported oddities with the terminal-type negotiations. Specifically, the resulting terminal-type after negotiations would not be the requested terminal type.

We have reviewed and touched up this code to ensure that it is in strict conformity with RFC1091. Also, a user-selectable 'debug' mode has been added that can help if problems continue. Simply define the DOS environment variable 'TN_DEBUG' prior to starting Windows, and this new mode will be enabled. Under debug mode, each receipt of a terminal-type negotiation packet will cause a message to be written to the console. These messages could be of value to us (i.e., QPC) in tracking down the problem. If you find that terminal-type negotiation with VMS hosts doesn't work, you can use TN_DEBUG to enable debug mode, then email us the resulting output from your CONSOLE.LOG file.

20. Telnet: we have done some work on the mouse-driven text-selection code. We believe this function will now work correctly, without leaving 'gaps' in the selected area.


21. Mail: a new config directive - 'mailcheck_interval' - has been added to the [pop] section of QVTNET.INI. This directive allows you to specify, in minutes, the time interval that will be allowed to elapse between background checks for new mail. The default is 5.


22. The 'General' configuration dialog has been modified to disallow update access to the IP address at runtime, except when the address is all zero's. This will prevent on-the-fly changes to the PC's IP address (and the implied destructive potential).


23. A discrepancy has been fixed between QVTNET.INI and QVTNET.RC concerning the keyword used to enable local echo in Telnet sessions. The correct keyword is now 'local_echo' in both QVTNET.INI and QVTNET.RC.


24. News: the 'Post Followup' dialog now allows you to specify that you want the followup article mailed to the writer of the original posting, rather than posted to the net. This option will be available as long as: 1) the 'Mail' module is active (though there does not have to be an active session); and 2) the original article contains the writer's email address on the 'From:' line.


25. SMTP bug fix: the sender and recipient addresses are now enclosed in angle brackets ("<>") when sent to the SMTP server, as specified in RFC821.


26. News bug fix: under certain circumstances, when posting a followup article, the wrong subject line and/or 'from' address would be written to the followup text. This bug has been fixed.



Version 3.2


27. FTP: the login dialog no longer requires that a password be entered before enabling the 'Ok' button.


28. Mail: if SMTP has been selected as the default protocol for sending mail (see release note 2), it is now possible to compose and send a new mail message without having to first open a POP3 session.


29. Version 3.20 has support for BOOTP at the alpha level. QPC offers no assurance that BOOTP will work in the present release, but users are welcome to try. In order to use BOOTP, you should enter the reserved word 'BOOT' as the argument to the 'name' configuration directive in the [net] section of QVTNET.INI. WinQVT/Net will expect the BOOTP server to provide the PC's node name and IP address, as well as the addresses of nameservers and gateways on the network.

Improvements in the reliability of this service can be expected in future releases.


30. News: newsgroup names longer than 48 characters should no longer cause problems when processing NEWS.RC. Note, however, that lines in NEWS.RC which exceed 512 characters may still cause problems.


31. A major problem in version 3.16 had to do with the possibility of the DOS 'path' variable overflowing the storage space provided for it in WNNETDLL.DLL. This problem would typically cause WinQVT/Net to crash immediately at startup. In version 3.20, space for the path has been expanded to 1024 characters.


32. RCP: the rcp server will now correctly signal the completion of host-to-PC transfers. Also, the speed of these transfers has been increased somewhat.


33. Telnet: the setting of the 'local_echo' variable will control the negotiation process with respect to echo. If local echo is enabled, the host will be instructed to not echo characters, and vice versa. In previous versions, host echo was always requested, even if local echo was enabled.


34. Console: the automatic copying of all console messages to a log file can now be turned on or off (the default is on). The 'logging' directive in the [console] section of QVTNET.INI can be used to control logging at initial startup; thereafter, the 'Logfile' menuitem can be used to enable or disable logging interactively.


35. Telnet: pressing while data is being received in a telnet window should no longer cause WinQVT/Net to hang.


36. News: the 'More' button has been deleted. Instead, you can pre-emptively load the next set of articles by pressing the key and clicking on the last article in the listbox.


37. IP addresses acquired via RARP or BOOTP will no longer be written to QVTNET.INI when the network configuration is saved. Also, PC node names acquired via BOOTP will not be written to QVTNET.INI.


38. Telnet: response to auto-repeated cursor keys has been improved.


39. FTP: if the initial transfer mode is 'binary' (from QVTNET.INI), the first transfer will be done (correctly) in binary mode. This is a bug fix.


40. The format of the QVTHOST.RC host-database file has been changed. WinQVT/Net will now expect QVTHOST.RC to be in the format of a Unix-style 'hosts' file. There should be one line per host, with each line of the form:

nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn [, , ...]

where 'nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn' is the host's IP address, is the 'standard' name for the host, and is a list of zero or more alternate names for the host (up to four).

The QVTHOST.RC file should be placed in the WinQVT/Net 'home' directory (i.e., QVTNET_DIR), or in the directory specified by the new (optional) environment variable QVTHOST_DIR. The latter is most useful if a number of users are sharing a single copy of WinQVT/Net on a LAN. By using QVTHOST_DIR to point to a different location than QVTNET_DIR, each user can have his or her own configuration files, but the entire group can share a single hosts database.

In order to identify nameservers and gateways, two new config directives have been added to QVTNET.INI. These are:

[net] section
...
router=[][,][,
and:

[domain] section
...
nameserver=[][,][,
where each is the name of a machine which is listed in QVTHOST.RC. Up to three names may be given in each directive. If multiple names are specified, they should be separated from one another by a comma; there should be no blanks or tabs.

Gateways and nameservers will not appear as selectable hosts at the various points in WinQVT/Net where hostnames are presented (Telnet startup, FTP startup, etc.). If you want to use a host as a gateway and/or nameserver, and still have the hostname appear in the startup dialogs, you should create an alias for the host in QVTHOST.RC. The principal name of the host will be suppressed, but the alias will still appear.

If you plan to use a nameserver to supply the addresses of most of the hosts that you will access, you can give the IP addresses of these hosts as four zeros (0.0.0.0) in QVTHOST.RC. WinQVT/Net will recognize that no IP address has been given for that machine, and will make a domain nameserver query at runtime in order to acquire the address.

Note: you must provide IP addresses for any hosts which are to be treated as gateways and/or nameservers!

Here is a short excerpt from a QVTHOST.RC file that demonstrates these options:

26.1.9.54 host1 host1-alias #nameserver
129.126.253.2 host2 #gateway
0.0.0.0 host3 #address will be looked up at #runtime

Note the use of the '#' to delimit in-line comments.


QVTNET.INI looks like this:

[net]
...
router=host2
...
[domain]
...
nameserver=host1


This note does not apply to the PC-NFS version of WinQVT/Net.


41. FTP: the login sequence now allows a port other than the standard 21 to be used as the command port. If the menu/dialog method is used for logging in, a new input field has been added to the login dialog. If the command-line method is used, a second argument (following the host name) can be used to specify the port. For example, the command 'open ftphost 26' would open an FTP command connection on port 26.


42. News: a bug in the management of the article list has been fixed. If a set of articles at the end of the newsgroup is junked, but earlier articles are left unread, the junked articles will stay junked.


43. An on-line help facility has been added. Help is now available for both initial setup and for using each of the applications.


44. The ability to force-kill the various clients (by selecting the 'Close' menuitem) has been improved.


45. Console: the News, Mail, and lpr buttons (and menuitems) will be disabled if there are no 'host=' entries for these applications in QVTNET.INI.


46. The FTP, News and Mail applications have a new QVTNET.INI directive, 'autologin='. If 'on', the login procedure will start as soon as the window is opened; if 'off', the 'Open' menuitem must be invoked to initiate a login.


47. The Mail application has a new directive in QVTNET.INI, 'keep_password='. If 'yes', the login password will be retained between sessions, thereby streamlining the login procedure. If 'no', the password is discarded between sessions, and must be entered again at the beginning of each login.


48. The console window buttons are now accessible from the keyboard as well as the mouse.


49. Some problems with the Telnet negotiation have been fixed. The reliability of the 'Terminal Type' negotiation should be improved, especially in VMS environments.


50. The News and Mail applications now have a 'Print' button, which can be used to print the current displayed article to the default local printer.


51. News: the 'Junk' button functionality has been enhanced. You can now junk all of the articles in the listbox by pressing and holding the right mouse button, then clicking on the 'Junk' button.


52. FTP: uploads will no longer take over the machine while the transfer is in progress.


53. Console: 'auto_start' items will be launched correctly when WinQVT/Net is started as a minimized application (e.g., 'load=' in WIN.INI).


54. Terminal: the default port from QVTNET.INI is now being displayed correctly in the 'Start Session' dialog box.


Version 3.3

55. Many version 3.22 users have had problems with Telnet negotiations when connecting to VMS hosts. These problems have been addressed and at least partially solved in this release. Our testing has confirmed that there are no problems with DEC's own TCP/IP for VMS.

56. FTP: a problem with consumption of GDI resources has been fixed.

57. The 'Save QVTHOST.RC' operation will now make correct use of the QVTHOST_DIR environment variable.

58. The environment variable QVTHELP_DIR can now be used to specify a separate location for the two help files (WNQVTNET.HLP and WNSETUP.HLP).

59. The 'Username' field will no longer be locked out on the 'Start Terminal Session' dialog if the default port is 'rlogin'.

60. FTP: the login dialog will now accept passwords which contain embedded blanks.

61. Telnet: to quickly 'Paste' clipboard data, press the key and click the right mouse button. Also, an extraneous 'beep' has been removed from keyboard-initiated paste operations.

62. Telnet: the key-redefinition facility now supports key combinations. The string to associate with should be the fourth in the series of pipe-separated substrings:

|||

63. The 'window=' directive has been added to the [console] section of QVTNET.INI:

[console]
...
window=

A value of 'hidden' will cause the WinQVT/Net console to be displayed in its truncated form at program startup; i.e., the message-display area will be eliminated.

64. Version 3.2 specifies that the QVTNET.INI 'router=' and 'nameserver=' config directives can accept up to three host names, separated by commas. This feature was broken in version 3.22, and has been fixed in version 3.3.

65. In previous releases, the 'router=' and 'nameserver=' directives could accept only host names as arguments, not IP addresses. This has been corrected in version 3.3.

66. Telnet: a full transcript of all telnet negotiations can be printed to the Console by creating the DOS environment variable NEGOT_DEBUG prior to starting Windows. Only the existence of this variable is significant, not its value. The TN_DEBUG environment variable, previously introduced, is still functional.

67. Some security holes in the FTP server have been fixed.


Version 3.4

68. News Reader: the 'Newsgroups' submenu has been restructured somewhat. Instead of a single 'Read' menuitem, there are now these three menuitems:

Read Articles Load the first (or next) batch of articles from the
selected newsgroup

Read All Articles Load all (remaining) articles from the selected newsgroup

Reset Newsgroup Resets a newsgroup to its initial state as of the beginning
of the current session. Not available for newsgroups which
have been 'purged'.

69. A problem with the FTP server in the PC-NFS version has been fixed. Previously, the first user to login to the server would have no problem, but the server would fail to respond to subsequent login requests. This bug is fixed in version 3.32.

70. Mail: when sending mail via SMTP, the 'smtp_return' address will be used in the 'From:' line as well as in the 'Return-Path:' line.

71. Terminal: the Telnet option negotiation code has been completely rewritten. There are no problems logging on to VMS/Multinet hosts.

72. Terminal: the default 'Paste' behavior is now 'fast paste'. If you want to do a 'slow' paste, press and hold the key, then click the right mouse button.

Some applications, such as Gnu Emacs, have problems with fast paste. In these situations, use slow paste.

73. Terminal: all printing now goes through the Windows Print Manager. This obsoletes the 'printer' and 'printer_init' configuration statements in QVTNET.INI. It also results in the addition of some new menu items to the File menu.

The first two are 'Select Printer', which you can use to select a 'current' printer, and 'Select Font', which is used to identify the font which will apply to subsequent print jobs. The selected printer and font will continue to be used for printing until changed, via another 'Select' operation.

If you perform any printing through a Terminal session without selecting a printer and font, the default printer will be selected, and a reasonable 'Courier' font will be used.

The final new menuitem is 'Transparent Print', which is a little more elusive:

There are two kinds of output that you might want to send to your printer. The first is plain text, including directory listings, and scrolling 'tty' output in general. The other type of output can be described as 'pre-formatted printer output'. This would include, in addition to the actual text, all of the various control codes that are used to format the text (e.g., escape sequences). Postscript files fall into this category.

If you plan to print plain text, you should leave the Transparent Print option off. If, however, you intend to run a print job whose output will arrive at the PC already formatted, you should enable Transparent Print before you begin the job.

74. FTP: the inability to cancel an FTP login from the 'Username:' prompt has been corrected.

75. RCP: you can now use the RCP server to send formatted print files from a host to the PC printer. To use this option, specify 'PRN' as the destination file (case is significant):

% rcp test.dat mypc:PRN

This facility uses 'transparent' printing, so the file must include all necessary control codes of the type usually provided by the printer driver.

76. The FTP client should no longer 'hang' when processing multi-line login messages.

77. Mail: in the 'Send Mail Message' dialog, the aliases are now displayed by themselves; i.e., without the username(s) which are associated with the aliases. The result is a more readable presentation.

78. Terminal: pressing while data is being received will no longer result in a loss of data.

79. FTP: the 'get' command will no longer hang the system if the requested file doesn't exist.

80. Terminal: the scrollback buffer size is now user-configurable. See the 'buffer=' statement in the [terminal] section of QVTNET.INI. The default value is 72; the maximum is 150.

81. Terminal: pressing the 'Pause' key to perform a 'Hold Screen' operation should no longer hang the system.

82. News: the '' function has been modified. Instead of deleting all articles from the listbox, it deletes only articles within and above the visible area. Articles which are 'below' the visible area will not be deleted.

83. News: a new '' function has been added. This function deletes all read articles from the listbox, leaving only unread articles.

84. News: a new '' function has been added. This function unmarks all 'read' articles in the listbox.

85. FTP: a 'logindir' statement has been added to the [ftp] section of QVTNET.INI. This allows you to specify the initial (local) login directory for the FTP client.


Version 3.6

86. Telnet: the 'negotiate=' directive is now available in QVTNET.INI and QVTNET.RC. The purpose of this directive is to enable or disable telnet terminal-type negotiations. The default is 'yes'; if you are having trouble getting telnet to work on an 'alien' host (i.e., IBM mainframe or AS/400), you may want to try 'negotiate=no'.

87. Mail: the interface for sending messages, and replying to messages, has been modified. The new interface has the message-text input area built into the dialog, as opposed to using an external editor. The 'Send Mail' interface (not 'Send Reply') retains the ability to use a disk file as all or part of the message; you can do this by entering a name into the 'Filename' input field, then clicking on the 'Edit' button. If you use both the built-in text and a disk file, the in-memory text (if any) will be sent first, followed by the file.

88. FTP: file transfers should now work correctly with operating systems (e.g. Primos) which use the '>' character as a path delimiter.

89. Mail/News: the logical line length has been increased from 80 characters to 120 characters. The default physical line length remains at 80.

90. FTP: the 'mget' and 'mdelete' commands have been fixed. In some recent releases, these commands would sometimes return the list of eligible filenames without actually apply the selected command.

91. Terminal: the ability to associate a host with a configuration now works correctly for hosts which are not listed in the host database (QVTHOST.RC).

92. Mail: the 'Send Mail Message' dialog now includes a field for a 'Cc:' entry. Addressees entered into this field will receive copies of the message.

Note: you cannot use aliases in the 'Cc:' field, only real email addresses. Support for aliases will be added in a future release.

93. Mail: the 'Login' dialog has been enhanced. The old 'Display Messages' checkbox is replaced by a new one, labelled 'Display New Messages Only'. When this checkbox is selected, only new messages will be displayed in the message listbox. If there is no new mail, the listbox will be left empty. The result is a considerably quicker login process.

94. News: the 'Post New Article' dialog has been improved. It now includes a pair of radio buttons which clarify the idea that the article text will come from either a brand-new file that you are about to create, or from a pre-existing file.

95. Terminal: there is now a lower limit to how far a Terminal window can be shrunk. This limit is determined by the dimensions needed to retain full visibility of the scrollbars. Some problems with GPF's should be eliminated by this change (as well as some problems with cosmetics).

96. Terminal: redefined keys will now be handled correctly when local echo is enabled.

97. Terminal: pressing the key should no longer cause WinQVT/Net to hang.

98. FTP: handling of multiple-line responses has been improved.

99. lpr: some problems with the 'print binary file' option have been fixed.

100. Mail: the background mail check can now be initiated from the regular 'Login' dialog. This makes the 'autologin' config directive more practical.

101. News: the user interface for posting articles and followups has been improved. The new posting dialogs include a 'form' like arrangement for handling the various items which are part of the article header (e.g., 'From:', 'Subject:', etc.). This format will help assure that no mandatory header fields are omitted (the 'Post' button will not be enabled unless all mandatory fields are present). In addition, the software will make sure that all header lines are formatted correctly before transmission to the NNTP server, thereby helping to avoid '441' errors.

A default article header used to be stored in the PNEWS.HDR text file. In this release, PNEWS.HDR has been dropped. Instead, the mandatory header items will be stored in the [nntp] section of QVTNET.INI. Three new statements have been added for this purpose:

posthdr_from=
posthdr_distrib=
posthdr_org=

These QVTNET.INI statements are only defaults; you can change them as needed when posting an article.

102. lpr: the window layout has been modified to allow for longer host names.

103. News: most of the items in the 'Newsgroups' menu are now mapped to accelerator keys.

104. A new statement has been added to the [pop] section of QVTNET.INI. The format of this statement is:

login_messages=

The purpose of the statement is to specify the initial state of the 'New Messages Only' checkbox which appears on the Mail 'Login' dialog.


Version 3.7

105. News: the posting of articles and followups is now handled asynchronously. You can now submit an article and resume reading without having to wait for the posting operation to complete (which is often a fairly lengthy delay).

106. Telnet: the 'negotiate=' config directive has been enhanced. The previous form of this directive is 'negotiate=', indicating whether the Terminal module should perform telnet terminal-type negotiations. The new, enhanced form is:

negotiate=[,]

The meaning of the new, optional '' argument is this: if set to 'all', Terminal will initiate telnet negotiations upon connection completion regardless of which server port is used by the connection; if set to 'default', Terminal will initiate telnet negotiations only if the connection is to server port 23, the default port for telnet.

The enhanced form of this directive is backward compatible, in that the leading argument may be omitted, resulting in the default behavior. You should specify 'all' only if you are connecting to a server which implements the telnet protocol, but which listens on a port other than 23.

107. Terminal: the mouse-driven text-selection function has been enhanced; you can now select text backward as well as forward.

108. Mail: a bug in the background mail check has been fixed. It should now perform as expected.

109. News & Mail: you can now print the current article or mail message directly through the 'lpr' spooler by pressing and holding the key (or the right mouse button), then clicking on the 'Print' button. The 'lpr' module must be fully prepared with host, queue, and username specifiers (preferably via settings in QVTNET.INI). If 'lpr' has been properly set up, but doesn't happen to be running at the moment, it will be started prior to submitting the print job.

110. News: a bug has been fixed which caused the article count in newly-subscribed newsgroups to be incorrect (sometimes progressively so).

111. FTP (client and server): text files will be sent with correct formatting whether they are stored in DOS (CR+LF) or UNIX (LF only) format.

112. lpr: the lpr module will now work with Ultrix hosts.

113. Mail: there is now no problem in copying relatively large messages to the Clipboard.

114. Mail/News: a new menuitem has been added that provides for interactive font selection. The selected font will not only be applied to the current session, but will be saved in QVTNET.INI for use in subsequent sessions.

115. Mail: an 'Edit' button has been added to the 'Reply' dialog, which allows the use of the default editor for composing the reply.

116. FTP: the 'take' command (for running scripts) can now execute the 'open' and 'user' commands. Make sure that you include both the username and password on the 'user' command line.


Version 3.8

117. News: a 'killfile' facility has been added. The killfile is used as a filter to suppress the display (in the article list) of articles which contain specified strings in their subject lines, or which originate from specified authors. The killfile must be named QVTNEWS.KIL, and must reside in the WinQVT/Net 'home' directory.

The killfile is an ASCII text file, and can be created and modified with any ASCII text editor, such as 'Notepad'. The format is as follows:

/
From:


where is the name of the newsgroup to which the next series of lines applies, is the name (or email address) of the author that you want to 'kill', and is a string referencing subjects that you want killed. In all cases (except the newsgroup name), only a partial match is necessary; also, all matches are case sensitive (this restriction may be removed in a future release). Note also that lines containing newsgroup names must begin with a forward slash. In 'From:' lines, the colon must be followed by one and only one blank space.

An example might look like this:

/talk.politics.misc
From: J. Obnoxious
From: [email protected]
Middle East

This killfile will suppress all articles in the 'talk.politics.misc' newsgroup which have been posted by 'J. Obnoxious', or containing the keywords 'Middle East'.

118. The FTP server can now use custom-designed 'hello' messages which will be displayed when prospective users first connect to the server. The custom hello message should be placed in a text file named 'FTPSERV.HLO', located in the WinQVT/Net 'home' directory. The file should consist of a series of line with this format:

220-
...

(Note the '-' following the '220' result code), and concluding with a line with this format:

220

(Note the single blank following the '220' return code).

If these format requirements aren't followed exactly, you may be unable to log in to the FTP server!

119. WinQVT/Net can now use the environment variable 'QVTNET_INI' as a specifier for the main initialization file (normally QVTNET.INI). Unlike the other environment variables used by WinQVT/Net, QVTNET_INI specifies the entire pathname of the .INI file, not just the directory where a QVTNET.INI file may be found.

For example:

set QVTNET_INI=e:\qvtini\qpcsoft.ini

The purpose of this feature is to allow a PC LAN administrator to set aside a single directory on a file server as a repository for WinQVT/Net .INI files; the files can be named to correspond with the users. In order to provide more security, this directory can be read-only, to help prevent tampering with configuration information. A read-only .INI file will not interfere with the ordinary operation of the Mail application, since Mail will now use WIN.INI as a repository.

The use of the QVTNET_INI variable is entirely optional and backward-compatible. If this variable is not present, WinQVT/Net will look for QVTNET.INI in the 'home' directory, as before.

120. Winsock and NT versions: it is now possible to use a private QVTHOST.RC file as a front-line 'hosts' database, instead of the 'hosts' file provided by the Winsock environment. This is done by creating a QVTHOST.RC file in the usual manner, and using the QVTHOST_DIR environment variable to specify the directory in which the QVTHOST.RC file is located.

There are two benefits to this arrangement:

1) When the main 'hosts' file is very large, it is often convenient to maintain a smaller QVTHOST.RC, containing only the most frequently-used entries.

2) QVTHOST.RC allows the use of the '0.0.0.0' IP 'address' as a way of indicating that an address lookup is required, possibly employing a domain nameserver. This allows the inclusion of hosts whose addresses are not known. Hosts listed in this way will have their addresses looked up via the 'gethostbyname' facility.

121. QVTNET.INI: a new directive, 'smtp_host', has been added to the '[pop]' section. This directive allows you to specify a host for use by the SMTP client different from that used by the POP3 client. If left blank (the default), SMTP will use the current POP3 host.

122. News: when posting a new article from an existing text file, it is no longer necessary to pass through the 'edit' step before posting.

123. rcp server: a bug has been fixed which caused the server to abort when copying a file to a directory on the PC (i.e., copy target specified as a directory only, no filename).


Version 3.9


124. News: there is no logical limit on the number of newsgroups you can subscribe to.

125. News: three new pushbuttons have been added to the button bar. These allow for quick access to the 'Load', 'Purge', and 'Display Newsgroup List' functions. The 'Load' and 'Purge' buttons have two modes: if clicked normally, the 'Load Articles' and 'Purge - Partial' menuitems, respectively, will be executed. If clicked while the right mouse button is being held down, the 'Load All Articles' and 'Purge - All' menuitems are executed instead.

126. FTP: the 'Change Directory' menuitem now allows changing drives as well as directories.

127. Servers: some previous versions in the 3.x series have suffered from an almost total inability to connect to the FTP and RCP servers (Winsock and NT versions only). This bug has been fixed.

128. FTP: the 'hostname', 'username', and 'password' directives have been added to the [ftp] section of QVTNET.INI. These can be used to speed FTP logins when performed via the 'Open' dialog.

Note: storing your password in a disk file that might be read by others is not good security practice. We don't recommend it unless you are using the 'username' and 'password' directives to expedite 'anonymous' FTP logins.

129. BOOTP: you can now use WinQVT/Net's BOOTP client to obtain information such as the PC's IP address from a BOOTP server on the network. To invoke BOOTP, set 'ip=BOOT' in the [net] section of QVTNET.INI. Information potentially available in this manner includes the PC's name and IP address, plus information about the network environment such as the default domain, subnet mask, and the addresses of gateways and nameservers.

130. News/Mail: if a 'bold' and or 'italic' font is selected using the 'Setup - Font' dialog, the selected attribute(s) will be stored in QVTNET.INI for use in subsequent sessions. Previous versions stored only the font name and size.

131. News: the Windows NT version will now correctly read and write NEWS.RC, as well as other text files such as QVTALIAS.RC and QVTNET.ACL.

132. Terminal: a new hot key has been added. You can now use to bring up the 'Start Terminal Session' dialog.

133. Terminal: a new menuitem has been added to 'Setup' to allow the user to select any fixed-pitch font for use in the current session. The selected font may also be saved for use by future sessions as well. To support this feature, the 'custom_font' config directive has been added to the [terminal] section of QVTNET.INI.

Note: Fonts other than the 'DEC' font supplied by QPC will not be able to provide the DEC line-drawing characters. If your host application needs these characters, you should use the DEC font.

134. Bug fix: The FTP server will no longer truncate files that it transmits.

135. News: the initial width of the News Reader window is 100 columns (increased from 80). If 100 columns are not available, the window will be sized to fit.

136. Bug fix: the FTP server will no longer GP fault when no QVTNET.ACL file is present (v3.92 bug, fixed in v3.94).

137. QVTNET.INI: some consistency has been brought to the specification of host names in the various application sections. Beginning with version 3.94, all host name config statements in QVTNET.INI will use the keyword 'host='. In previous versions, some sections used 'host', while others (e.g. lpr) used 'hostname'.

For the present, backward compatibility will be maintained. However, the configuration dialogs will now write the new keywords.

138. lpr: in addition to the change from 'hostname' to 'host' keywords, the 'qname' config directive will now use the keyword 'queue'. Backward compatibility will be maintained, but the config dialog will write the new keyword.

139. Terminal: the 'print_mode' config directive has been added to the [terminal] section of QVTNET.INI. This allows you to set the default print mode for all terminal sessions. Values are 'transparent' or 'normal'.

140. FTP: the 'savedir' config directive has been added to the [ftp] section of QVTNET.INI. This allows you to specify a directory which will be the default directory for downloads. All retrieved files will be placed in this directory, except for those which already specify an absolute pathname.

141. Terminal: the 'Setup - Color' dialog has been enhanced. You can now use the standard Windows color-selection dialog to select colors visually.



Version 3.96


142. The 'printer=' config directive has been added to the [localio] section of QVTNET.INI. The arguments to this directive should follow the format used by the 'device=' statement in the [windows] section of WIN.INI: ,,

. This config directive can be used to override the Windows 'default' printer.

143. Mail: the standard Windows 'File - Open' dialog is now available from within the 'Send Mail' dialog.

144. News: the user interface has been enhanced. There are now two button arrays: one on the left for manipulating newsgroups, and one on the right for manipulating articles. In addition, the menu structure has been improved.

The new buttons work as follows:

'Load Articles' - download another batch of articles from the server. If this button is clicked while the right mouse button is held down, the entire remaining set of articles will be downloaded.

'Purge Newsgroup' - purge some or all of the articles from the selected newsgroup. The 'Purge All' option is invoked by pressing and holding the right mouse button, then clicking the 'Purge' button.

'Subscribe' - Subscribe to a new newsgroup (or groups). If this button is clicked while the right mouse button is held down, the 'Unsubscribe' function will be invoked instead (if a newsgroups is selected).

'Post' - Post a new article.

145. News: a new menu option - 'Read Thread' - has been added. Selecting this menuitem will cause the article-list display to be restricted to those articles which are related by subject to the current article. The entire article list will be downloaded from the server if necessary.

Just before beginning the search, the subject line from the current article will be brought up for editing in a dialog box. This will allow you to refine the search by deleting extraneous characters from the search string (e.g., 're:').

146. News: a new dialog box has been added to assist in managing the 'killfile'. This dialog is accessed from the 'File - Killfile' menu option, and is available only when a 'selected newsgroup' is defined to the newsreader (a newsgroup is 'selected' by single- or double-clicking on a newsgroup name). The 'from' and 'subject' lines from the current article, if any, will be passed to the dialog, along with the newsgroup name.

Subjects and/or users to 'kill' may be added to the killfile by typing them into the supplied input fields, then clicking on 'Add New'. Subjects and/or users currently listed in the killfile may be removed by selecting them in the supplied listboxes, then clicking on 'Delete Selected'.

147. News: the 'Undelete' item has been added to the 'Articles' menu. This option allows you to restore the last 'junked' article to the article list. The 'Undelete' menuitem will be available only when an identifiable 'last junked article' is known.

148. The News, Mail, and FTP windows will now save their screen locations upon closing. The News and Mail windows will also save their sizes (the FTP window is not resizable).

149. News: a new option for the 'Junk' button has been added. If the 'Junk' button is clicked while both the and keys are depressed, then all of the articles in the listbox will be junked. Other options include: - delete all 'read' articles; - delete all articles up to and including the selected article; - delete all articles up to and including the last visible article.

150. News and Mail: the main text display in these applications is now a standard Windows multi-line edit control (in read-only mode). This provides two benefits: 1) an increase in speed, and 2) the ability to copy selected text from the display to the clipboard.

151. News bug fix: the 'Unmark' function did not always unmark the correct article. This bug has been fixed in the present release.

152. Terminal bug fix: the 'transparent print' function would sometimes retain a fragment of text from one print job to the next. This bug is fixed in this release.

153. Winsock and NT versions: the 'dispatch=' config directive has been added to the [console] section of QVTNET.INI. This directive specifies whether the synchronous or asynchronous form of the 'select()' sockets function will be used to detect and dispatch network events.The default value is 'async', but this may not be the ideal choice for some Winsock transports. If the console reports any unusual communication errors while running a WinQVT/Net application, you might try changing from 'dispatch=async' to 'dispatch=sync'.

154. News: killfile subject string matching, as well as 'read thread' string matching, are now case-insensitive.

155. News: a bug in the 'Reset Newsgroup' function has been fixed. All buttons and menuitems will be set to their correct state following a reset.

156. Printer support: when a printer font is selected, the result will be saved in QVTNET.INI for use in subsequent sessions.

157. Mail bug fix: in some previous versions, if the background mail check was started after having previously closed a session with the 'Close - no mail check' menuitem, the mail check was performed only once. This bug has been fixed.

158. News : the 'article_limit' directive has been added to the [nntp] section of QVTNET.INI. This allows for the creation of a ceiling on the number of unread articles that can accumulate in a newsgroup. If omitted, there is no limit (for backward compatibility).

159. Mail: a small change has been made to the way that the previous-session message count is stored. Instead of using the 'msgs=' statement in the [pop] section, a new section - [msgs] - is used, and the keyword will be the username. This will allow for the maintenance of multiple remote mailboxes under different usernames.

The old format:

[pop]
...
msgs=10

The new format:

[msgs]
smith=10
jones=4

160. News: a bug has been fixed in the 'killfile' code. This bug would cause WinQVT/Net to abort with the message 'Unexpected QuickWin Error'.

161. News: while reading articles, one or more new articles will be loaded for every article read. This will make the reading process smoother, as the delay of loading new articles from the server is more spread out.

162. Terminal: 'autostart' now works for rlogin as well as telnet configurations (bug fix).

163. FTP: there is no longer a problem closing the FTP window from the menu while keyboard input is pending (i.e., a data-entry prompt is present in the command-line area).

164. Mail: beginning in version 3.97, the mail module provides the ability to send binary files over the mail system. When encapsulated binary files are sent to other WinQVT/Net users, the mail application will automatically reconstitute the file on the receiving machine. Other systems can use an external 'uudecode' facility to recreate the file.

Note: files with the extension '.TXT' will not be encapsulated in this manner. This type of file will be treated as part of the message body.

165. Terminal: when the 'auto print' or 'printer controller' modes are used to route received data to the printer, there will no longer be an extra page eject at the end of the print job.

166. Mail and News: the (local) 'Print' function has been fixed. Pressing the 'Print' button will no longer cause the program to hang. Note, however, that there may still be a problem if your QVTNET.INI file contains a 'printer=' statement of the old form: 'printer='. In order to avoid problems with local printing, your 'printer=' statement must either be left blank, or should be of the same form as the 'device=' statement in WIN.INI. We recommend that you leave it blank to begin with, and use the 'Setup - Select Printer' dialog to choose a printer for WinQVT/Net.

167. Terminal: with previous versions, using the 132-column font on VGA displays would cause the rightmost edge of the window to become slightly corrupted. This problem is fixed in version 3.97.

168. Mail & News: lines of text with a leading byte-stuffed '.' are now processed correctly.

169. Terminal: the 'font=custom' statement in the [terminal] section of QVTNET.INI now works correctly.

170. FTP: some effort has been put into improving file-transfer data rates. Both client and server are affected.

171. Terminal: a cut-and-paste operation can now select the rightmost column and bottommost line.

172. Mail and News: a 'port=' statement has been added to the [nntp] and [pop] section of QVTNET.INI (and to the setup dialogs). This can be used to select an IP port different from the defaults.

173. Terminal: the 'eolchar=CR' statement can be used in the [terminal] section of QVTNET.INI (and also in a QVTNET.RC configuration) to instruct the terminal application to treat a carriage-return character (0x0D) as a newline (as opposed to a CRLF pair).

174. FTP: the FTP client will now scroll correctly when connected to servers which send only a carriage-return as a newline character.

175. Mail: in messages sent using SMTP, the header date is now correctly formatted according to RFC822. This feature requires that you add the DOS variable 'TZ' to your AUTOEXEC.BAT, as in these examples:

set TZ=EST5EDT
set TZ=PST8PDT

176. Mail/News: when locally printing a message (or article) that has been truncated due to buffer overflow, the message will now be printed in its entirety. In releases prior to 3.97.2, the truncated version of the message was printed, instead of the complete message.


username. This will allow for the maintenance of multiple remote mailboxes under different usernames.
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